After Shark Tank, Mark Cuban Just Wants to Break Shit—Especially the Prescription Drug Industry

What bash you mean by that?

Because your security company, whoever it whitethorn be, uses a PBM, a pharmacy payment manager. The PBM has negotiated with a pharmacy what the reimbursement complaint is. Except they fundamentally said, “Here’s what we’re going to reimburse you.” [His Apple Watch buzzes.]

You tin spell up and cheque that.

It’s my son. [Speaking into watch.] We’ll bash a precocious lunch. Don’t interest astir it. Go up and person fun. [Back to the interview.] He’s playing basketball.

Nice.

So, with the PBMs, there’s nary negotiation. Particularly for the tiny autarkic pharmacies, they instrumentality it oregon permission it. And: “Oh, by the way, you are not allowed to accidental thing astir this declaration astatine all.” Period. The fig 1 regularisation of wellness attraction contracts is you don’t speech astir wellness attraction contracts. So alternatively of breaking even, the pharmacy mightiness suffer $20 to $30 connected each marque subscription they’re doing. The thought is, they’ll marque it up connected toilet insubstantial and different stuff. Well, that doesn’t work.

And the cause manufacturer?

The PBMs besides negociate with the manufacturers, but they suffer retired arsenic well. They person nary thought who is utilizing their medications, what the demographics are, what the adherence is. So the PBM volition connection to bash investigation for them, and past sell the shaper entree to the information for their ain drug.

Then the commercialized relation for the PBM says, “Look astatine the atrocious guys!” It’s truthful convoluted and opaque.

[Greg Lopes, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, a commercialized group, told WIRED, “PBMs person a proven way grounds of securing savings connected medicine drugs for patients.” He added that cause companies “are solely liable for mounting and raising medicine cause prices.”]

OK, truthful you saw however these entities bought up drugs and controlled the market. Why didn’t you, a billionaire, instrumentality that attack with different drugs? Why didn’t you say, I’m going to bargain each the insulin successful America?

Well, we looked astatine manufacturing insulin. We developed our ain glargine [synthetic] insulin, and I spent $5 cardinal oregon more, I don’t adjacent know. But that was close erstwhile Biden made definite Medicare plans were covering insulin for up to a $35 copay. So it made nary consciousness to bash it astatine that point.

You told Texas Monthly that you don’t attraction if you don’t marque a luck disconnected of this. Is that inactive true?

I privation to marque it truthful it’s self-sustained. I don’t privation to subsidize it the full time. But I don’t request to marque money.

Do you spot Cost Plus Drugs arsenic altruistic?

No. I spot it arsenic amusive with a immense impact. Altruism is like, “Great, I consciousness bully due to the fact that I’m helping people. I gave wealth and da-da-da-da-da.” Disrupting an manufacture that everybody hates, that’s fun. I’m getting emails and letters, if not each week, each 2 weeks, saying, “Oh my God, my grandma’s alive.” I conscionable got a enactment from idiosyncratic who wrote, “You saved maine $15,000 a twelvemonth connected my crab medication. I would beryllium dormant if it weren’t for you.”

What’s absorbing is—and I’m not going to accidental midlife crisis—it does look similar you’re astatine slightest reasoning astir your bequest now.

But if I was 25 and this accidental came up—